To protect other UN peacekeepers ~ because, presumably, other countries sent troops that are unable to fight or, perhaps, the rules of engagement are too restrictive; and

Move UN troops around the country by helicopter.

He also, by the way, wants Canada to, simultaneously, commit forces to South Sudan. Perhaps Mr Khare, and Indian diplomat with extensive experience in the senior ranks of the UN, didn’t hear Canada when we said we’ll send 650 people or, perhaps, he doesn’t know enough about military operations and logistics. In any event Minister Sajjan’s somewhat surprised (perhaps bemused) expression in Halifax seems to say it all.

The Minister appears, to me, to have some well formed notions of his own but it also seems, to me, that he is being forced to bite his tongue or, when he does speak, to eat his words because the government’s propaganda machine cannot square the circle of wanting to send French speaking, female police officers to protect women’s rights with the realities of 21st century “peacekeeping” in Africa which is a messy, bloody business that is all about killing terrorists and thugs and marauders, some of whom may be UN “peacekeepers.” This, the realities on the ground in places like Mali and South Sudan, is not, I think, what Team Trudeau imagined during the election campaign.